Slow Day
by hap.e.daze
Summary: "Today's trip to the evidence garage was nothing more than Mac pulling rank, which, as head of the Crime Lab, he was entitled to do, Stella guessed." My response to Smuffly's and Kates89's Quote Swap challenge. Mac/Stella Friendship


**A/N: **This is in response to Smuffly's and Kates89 Quote Swap challenge. I got Stella, Evidence Garage and the quote (originally said by Jo) that's in bold text below. Hope you enjoy! I had fun writing...

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**Slow Day**

Two visits in two weeks was more than enough for Stella. And this trip, she knew, wouldn't be near as much fun. The last one had been amusing – maybe even satisfying – to point out to Mac that even he could be, at times, a sexist pig. She had laughed for hours at his expense. She couldn't help it. It was hilarious.

They had marched down here together. Mac filled out the paperwork and stood at the counter, informing the pretty young thing, also known as a gun-carrying sworn officer of the law, that he would wait as she went to retrieve the evidence. She simply raised her brows and informed him that these things take time.

Surprising Stella, Detective First Grade Mac Taylor – the boss who always adhered to the highest professional standards (probably out of necessity, Stella thought, because the man couldn't flirt with a stripper – _not_ that he ever had the chance) complimented the young woman on the shade of her blue eyes. And just as the officer was about to inform Mac what's what, he shook his head, "No, no. Don't take that the wrong way, but they're so unique. You just can't help but notice. They're striking." As the flushed woman walked away to begin her hunt, Stella turned to her boss. _That's low, Mac._ He blushed a little but quipped, "It's politics, Stella." _No_, she snapped. _It's sexism_. The young woman returned with the box, but Mac good and sulked the rest of the day.

And Stella celebrated his discomfort with repeated barbs about the _most striking _blue eyes he had ever seen. She couldn't help it. It was damn hilarious.

And here she was again. He could have just returned to bat eyelashes with said desk clerk instead of sending her. She could have claimed sexism again - since when was she sent to pick up his files? - but Mac had all but turned into an asexual being in response to her accusation two weeks ago, even refusing to notice when she had six inches chopped from her _very striking_ hair. Today's trip to the evidence garage was nothing more than him pulling rank, which, as head of the Crime Lab, he was entitled to do, she guessed.

She glanced at the index card in her hand. Mac's relatively neat scrawl in all capital letters requested the following boxes: _96-0119-SA-SBMT-AC-01/39 - 39/39_. Stella frowned. Only a man could create a cataloging system this ridiculous. _ 96 _(Year: 1996), _0119 _(Date: January 19), _SA _(Type of case: Sexual Assault), _SBMT _(Lead detective: Stella Bonasera; Supervising detective: Mac Taylor), _AC _(Victim's initials: Abigail Court), _01/39 _(Box 1 of 39).

And if that wasn't bad enough, evidence was cataloged first by year, then by type of case, then by date. So that meant 96-0120-H yada, yada, yada, came BEFORE 96-0119-SA because Homicide came before Sexual Assault. She looked up at shelf after shelf of boxes. All of them had an H. She was in the midst of Homicide Hell.

So, now Stella had to guess how many shelves (aisles perhaps?) accommodated the evidence from the 1996 Homicides before she found the 1996 Sexual Assaults. One aisle over: 96-0823-H. _August. Not far enough. _Next aisle: 96-0226-MCNV. _Major Crimes –Non-Violent. Too far. Let's go back. _Thirty-six minutes later, and nine feet off the ground standing on a stepladder retrieved from the back room (and that's hard to do when you wear high heels), Stella had successfully located the boxes: _96-0119-SA-SBMT-AC-01/38_. Finally.

Wait.

01/38, not 01/39, and Mac distinctly said there were 39 boxes and not 38. She looked at the index card. He even wrote it, and Mac was anything, if not precise. Maybe the boxes were mislabeled and there were 39? She counted. 36. 37. 38. No. Definitely not 39.

_I'm gonna kill him._

So now, she sat in front of the ancient microfiche to try to resolve the mystery. Was Mac actually wrong? Yes, she was dismayed and surprised to realize. He was wrong. Thirty-eight boxes was correct. And any number of possibilities for what Mac may have actually meant. Was it 98-0119-SA, etc. Or, was it 99-0119-SA-DMMT, etc. Or perhaps: 96-0118-SA, etc. Numbers and letters danced in her head, but one thought kept returning to the forefront: _I'm really gonna kill him._

Given that her cell phone didn't work inside the cinderblock building, she realized she might actually have to walk back to the Lab to sort this out. She tried a text. _You have a typo in your numbers. _Thank God. It went through.

_? I don't think so. -MT _ (He always signed off on his texts with initials, as if Stella didn't have his number committed to memory)

Her response: _Only 38 boxes. Is it 1998? Or was it Danny's case in 1999? Or was it my case on 1/18? Or did you mean 38?_

_Check again. No typo. -MT_

Did she mention she was gonna kill him? So, instead of returning with an order for 39 boxes of evidence, Stella had spent the better part of an afternoon searching through the evidence garage, trying to figure out the inner workings of Mac's impossibly complex brain. She took one last look at the boxes. Still only 38.

"Did you find what you needed?" he asked, appearing beside her in the middle of aisle 43.

"What _you_ needed, you mean?" she replied in annoyance. "It was a typo, Mac. I told you."

"There was no typo," he insisted. Stella lift her chin, about to retort, when she caught the grin he was trying to bite back. "Keep looking." He turned. She narrowed her eyes. She was on to him.

"You know something, Mac? **Because you're not man enough to admit what you did, now I gotta do math. And I hate math**."

He stopped and turned back. He looked genuinely offended. _Oh, he was a savvy actor, that one. _"What did I do?" he asked. "And what kind of math is that?"

"Probability," she snapped. He arched his eyebrows. "I am trying to decide what the probability is that you would lose three hours of my most valuable time solving crime to send me over here on a wild goose chase." Mac stared back expressionless. She walked close to him and tucked the index card into his shirt pocket. "I think you're pranking me." She patted his chest for good measure.

Mac stuffed his hands in his pockets. Finally, he nodded, a grin passing across his face. "Slow day, Stella. It was a very slow day."


End file.
